Milky Water

I have a problem with my tank. The water has over the past two days gone very milky. I have done a 20% water change and check that my filter is running properly. I had brown spots on everything but as was said in another thread leave it and it will go and it did but now the water is milky. Does anybody maybe know why and what it is.

Regards
Steve

 

Hi Steve. How long have you had the tank running? Did you add any chemicals in the past few days? Regards, Marco

 

The tank is only a month old. I cycled it for 2 weeks before adding fish and plants. No didn't ad chemicals.

 

Did you add anything to start the cycle, like food or any other source of NH3 ?

 

yes just 2 flakes of fish food

 

Hi Steve. What you are probably experiencing is a 'bacteria bloom' If you have a test kit test Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrates. You could find that there might be a spike in one of those, probably Nitrates. Its nothing serious then. You can just keep doing small W/C daily, or there is a Nutrifin product, the name escapes me that help in clearing this. Do the fish look happy? Regards, Marco

 

I don't have a test kit as yet. Budget wont allow it. I also thought so but was unsure. Will try the small water changes and see what happens

 

Nitrates does not spike or go up over night.It slowly accumulate over time if regular water changes are not done.
Bacteria blooms are caused by Nitrite spikes.This can be caused by a faulty filter,filter media washed in untreated tap water,over feeding or dead fish going unnoticed in the tank.Adding allot of new fish to the tank can also cause the bloom,it's called 'New Tank Syndrome'.
You can do the water changes but also check for the cause.

 

I do my water changes on time every time. i just added 3 khuli loaches to the tank so maybe that could be the answer. Thank you all!

 

This is what the water looks like. 1 front veiw 2 top veiw looking into the water 3 night light( blue fluorescent tube).

 

Aaah,wito.Thats the beginning of Green water.
The only cure:UV sterilizer or a 4 day black out.
Sorry.

 

doesnt activated carbon do something for that ???

 

From what i understand activated carbon only removes chemicals from the water. :bigsmile:

 

I've had this before. UV sterilizer helped a lot, but the one I had wasn't rated for my size tank... so wasn't effective enough. The bloom was growing faster than the UV could kill. I tried small (25% water changes) every day for a week with the UV sterilizer, which helped clear is slightly, but not enough.

What I eventually resorted to was a 50% water change on a Thursday evening. Covered the tank with heavy blankets, Removed the blanked on Monday evening, and did another 50% water change that same evening.

NOPE

Correct

 

ohh,ok i read that it clears yellow water. on the box for fluval carbon

 

Yellow water and green water are 2 different things

 

Did a 50% water change yesterday and put black bags around the tank and had a small peek this morning and there is definitely an improvement. So happy!

 

Don't be tempted to take the bags off before 4 days. Algae can't survive 3 days without light... 4 days is to make sure!

 

No!!! Going to do the full term. Thank you Zoom, Gert and everyone else who commented, for all the help.

 

So i removed the bags this evening and did a 50% water change and the results are phenomenal. Sorry using the camera on my phone. Thanks again every one.:bigsmile: